Tamara Zidansek

Tamara Zidansek is a Slovenian professional tennis player who has competed on the WTA Tour since 2014.

Tamara Zidansek is a Slovenian professional tennis player who was born on December 26, 1997, in Postojna, Slovenia. Her father introduced her to the sport at an early age, and she started working towards becoming a professional tennis player.

Following a successful junior career which saw her go as high as number 20 in the ITF junior world rankings, she got her first taste of the women’s tour at the ITF 10k event in Velenje, Slovenia. Keen to prove to her home crowd she was worth the hype, she had to force her way through a tough qualifying tournament just to be seen in the main draw. She made her chance count though, going on to win the title at the first time of asking.

Four years and a few more ITF tournament wins later, it was time for her to take her chances and do it where it really means business – the WTA Tour. after qualifying for the Morocco Open in 2018, she was graced with a first-round draw against Magda Linette, which ended up as a win for the Slovenian, winning on her main draw debut.

Testament to her hard work, she went on to reach the semifinal at the Moscow Open later that season before also making her Grand Slam debut at that August’s US Open. Despite a promising end to the 2010s, results really started picking up for Zidansek come the early 2020s.

It was the 2021 edition of Roland Garros when she was really starting to get her name out there amongst the sport’s better players. After a first-round win against 6th seed Bianca Andreescu, wins against Madison Brengle, Katerina Siniakova, Sorana Cirstea, and Paula Badosa set up a semifinal against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, which she lost.

Reaching the final four in Paris, as expected, set her up on a nice wave of form, one which she happily rode into that season’s Lausanne Open. After three three-setters, she mopped up that week’s trophy for what was her first WTA title.

It was only a matter of time before all this progress started paying off in ranking terms, and she reached her career peak in early 2022 when she secured the number 22 spot. Zidansek has shone not just on the singles court, either, claiming multiple titles also on the doubles court.